Lisa's Laws: The Super Bowl - time for father-child bonding

Sunday

Feb 3, 2013 at 2:00 AM

I try to get it, the whole Super Bowl thing. Each year I make sure I write the date down in my calendar book and promise myself that this year I will throw myself into the game and the spectacle. But with rare exception I am bored into lethargy before the end of the first quarter, the exception being the Monster.com Super Bowl, when they had that "when I grow up" ad with the kids announcing their mediocre, disappointing career goals, a la "I want to claw myself to middle management." That was a great Super Bowl.

Lisa Ramirez

I try to get it, the whole Super Bowl thing. Each year I make sure I write the date down in my calendar book and promise myself that this year I will throw myself into the game and the spectacle. But with rare exception I am bored into lethargy before the end of the first quarter, the exception being the Monster.com Super Bowl, when they had that "when I grow up" ad with the kids announcing their mediocre, disappointing career goals, a la "I want to claw myself to middle management." That was a great Super Bowl.

That was 1999, which I looked up and now know that it was Atlanta against Denver, and they played in Miami. That was 30 seconds of really, really good TV advertising.

Sometimes I wish I got it, and I especially wish I did when my dad was alive. He loved the Super Bowl, and his game-day parties could easily be mistaken for a good-sized Italian wedding, minus the bride and with more food. Even I, admittedly, enjoyed them, especially as I got older and could be trusted to run one of the smaller pools, such as the $5-per-box "wives pool." My main responsibilities were pay out at each quarter and make sure the winner tipped the bartender.

But I don't think my dad ever realized how little I understood about the Super Bowl itself and football in general, and I think he probably would have been stunned that, truly, I can't follow the whole "downs" thing. Forward, backward, whatever. But that's just the start. The things about the Super Bowl that I don't get include, but are by no means limited to:

How they make fans go to some neutral, out-of-left-field location for the game

The weird fascination with Roman numerals

Why, if you're in the stadium and paid, like, $80,000 for your seat and, presumably, you don't want to miss any of the game because you must really, really get it if you spent that much, the only bathroom break is halftime, and that's when they schedule some impossibly big-deal musical act

Why the Super Bowl gets special foods, such as wings and chili and nacho dip, but the World Series doesn't

And what ever happened to "Up With People?"

And here's what I do get:

The tailgating. Tailgating is great.

And one more thing I don't get:

Why anyone would leave a tailgate party to go watch a football game

Bella gets it. She's 11, and she knows how football works and can keep track of things if her dad has to walk out of the room. And when Chris comes back and asks some baffling question such as, "What down?" she will give him an answer, between one and four, and it seems always to be correct. Sometimes she even makes charts to keep track of key events in the game, and a couple of years back she requested true, regulation cheerleader pom-poms to (rattle? shake? pompomerize?) when a player does something exceedingly well.

Some years they invite a few people over to watch with them, once in a while we go to somebody's party. And some years it's just been the two of them in the living room, Chris completely comprehending the game, Bella eating chips, jotting notes on her chart, waving a pom-pom now and then. I'll hear them cheer and laugh now and then from the kitchen or wherever I am in the house.